Aston Villa, From Chicago to the Holte End of the World

Another game, another red card, another heroic stand at the goalmouth. Another draw, another point, another failure to score.

Villa’s league-worst goal-scoring record—11 in 19 games—has been a source of frustration to supporters for obvious reasons. It may come as some consolation, however, that Villa has done much more with each one of those goals than any other team in the Premier League.

Maybe scoring is overrated.

According to Paulo Bandini on The Guardian‘s Football Weekly podcast, Villa LEADS THE PREMIER LEAGUE in points-per-goal ratio. With 21 points from 11 goals, they have gotten 1.9 points per goal (“spectacular efficiency,” according to Bandini). No other team has more than 1.3. Whether through stalwart defense, timely scoring, or pure dumb luck, we find ourselves in the giddy heights of 13 place, despite the 7 teams below us having scored 17.7 goals on average.

So where did all those goals get them? Maybe scoring is overrated.

And guess who’s at the bottom of this particular table? Everton, with just 0.7 points per goal. They’ve scored 29 of the things, yet they sit just one place above Villa in the table.